Having run numerous blogs over the years, I’ve discovered that it is best to limit some of them in duration and I knew from the beginning that Ask Little Falls would only last a year. I started this blog on October 13, 2014, with a post asking people to vent about what they hate about Little Falls, MN. The purpose of that post, and the rest of this blog, was not merely to dwell on what isn’t working in town. It was to get long-term problems out in the open and stated clearly so that we could figure out how to solve them. I wanted the blog to be open-ended, just me asking questions and letting others have their say. That didn’t work as well as I had hoped and I switched to making commentary about the town from my perspective in order to lead up to a question.

While there weren’t as many comments on the blog as I had hoped, I heard from people outside the blog, mostly on my personal Facebook page. They provided thoughts and encouragement. One person told me in an email that Ask Little Falls serves as a mirror for the community. What a lovely thing to say! I want to thank everyone who followed along and shared their thoughts. Creating community is not a solo affair … at least it shouldn’t be.

Which leads to my pep talk. If we want to change Little Falls for the betterment of the majority of its citizens, to create a vibrant and progressive community that is economically viable and socially supportive, we have to get involved. WE … as in the individuals making up a collective. We can’t simply leave running the community up to a small group of others because we’re too busy to pay attention. (Note the wealth disparities that have taken hold in this country because Americans have been asleep at the wheel. Little Falls’ own Charles A. Lindbergh (the congressman, not the aviator) was vocal about the formation of the Federal Reserve in his day because of the imbalance in monetary power he thought it might lead to.)

I know it’s a tall order. If you’re working 40+ hours per week and trying to raise children and have some kind of social life, you’ve barely got time to get the laundry done, let alone get involved in the community. No need to run for political office to change the city; there are ways to get involved that don’t take a large commitment in time.

The easiest thing you can do to build community is get to know your neighbors. If you’re an introvert or can’t take the time to talk, wave at them. Become familiar with the regulars in your neighborhood. When you have a chance to chat, you’ll hear about what’s going on in the neighborhood and in town. There’s always one neighbor who knows what’s happening at every house in a three-block radius. Find that person in order to stay informed.

To make community engagement more effective, learn how government, nonprofits and other organizations work. There’s a process for changing ordinances or presenting at City Council meetings. Nonprofits and businesses have particular rules and structures to work through. While you’re waiting in line, do a little research on these topics on your smart phone. If you can work within a process, it should be easier to change things. If the process isn’t working, enlist help from the outside (friends with the same issue, nonprofit organizations, enforcement agencies, etc.) and see if you can mount change through extra assistance (many voices are harder to ignore) or finding an alternative route.

When you’ve got more time, get involved in the community by …

1.Volunteering at your favorite nonprofit

2. Serving on a board, committee or task force

3. Starting an interest group (doesn’t have to be political – you can build community by getting to know people with the same interests you have, whether homebrewing or cosplay.

4. Getting informed by collecting data on a specific issue and sharing that information with others, like those neighbors you’ve been waving at

5. Voting in elections (yes, exercise you’re right to vote!)

6. Demanding transparency in government and the nonprofits to which you make donations

7. Contacting your local officials, State Representatives, etc. about issues that concern you

8. Operating a business. Entrepreneurs, through the complex actions needed to make their businesses successful, end up being involved and building community.

9. Running for political office. Yeah, this one’s hard. You’ve got to have the stomach for the attention (both positive and negative). But we need a variety of people serving in government so that things don’t get lopsided in our communities.

If you’re not interested in holding political office, remember, there are all the other ways to practice community engagement and make Little Falls stronger. Simply having conversations with others in town will generate creative activities that build community. Let’s inspire each other rather than waiting for someone to come from outside to save Little Falls.

I’m a big believer in the the philosophy that if you’re going to complain, you ought to be willing to do something to change whatever you’re complaining about. Complaining that isn’t backed up by action is just whining and it’s not terribly helpful.

You might argue that it’s been hard to take action about the problems facing Little Falls and you would be right. Just because taking action is difficult … no matter whether the roadblocks are not enough or the wrong kinds of resources or people standing in the way of change … doesn’t mean you stop trying. (Take a break from banging your head against the wall, yes, stop trying altogether, no. Find a way to scale or go around that wall. Take it apart brick-by-brick if you have to.)

There are plenty of resources available to assist in your efforts to improve the community. Here are some places you can go for help. Many of these are data sources, which will give you information to move forward or make your case. (These are in no particular order.)

City of Little Falls – official website – features City Ordinances – find City Code & Ordinances under the City Information menu at the top

Morrison County – official county government website – find property info through Beacon under the GIS Information menu – also find a list of township officials under Government, Cities & Townships

Pew Research Center – provides the latest non-partisan research on larger trends facing society – good stuff comes out of Pew that can help communities figure out what trends to plan around – I follow Pew on Facebook

U.S. Census – provides demographic and economic data on specific communities – the link takes you to the Little Falls page

Minnesota Budget Bites – an offshoot of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits that looks specifically at tax and budget issues

Guidestar – for financial reports on local nonprofits (the IRS 990 form, specifically), visit Guidestar – you have to sign up for an account to get the 990, but it’s free

Minnesota Compass – an organization that tracks trends on the state level – helps with policy-making

Center for Rural Policy Development – takes a special look at issues facing rural communities in Minnesota – Tim Houle, the former Morrison County Administrator who is now in Crow Wing County, currently serves as Chair of the organization

Minnesota Legislature – find state laws and statutes, along with submitted bills, and contact info for your legislators

My intent for Ask Little Falls was to write one blog post per week for a year. I’m slightly ahead of schedule in terms of time, but this post is #52 out of 52. That means within the next couple of posts I’ll be wrapping up the blog.

This entire blog has been an effort to examine why it seems so difficult move the city forward, to implement change that improves lives for the city’s residents. The biggest issue seems to be the economy … providing a variety of living wage jobs locally for residents so they can live and work here without having to commute, giving them more time to contribute in other ways to the community.

Without further ado, here is my prescription for Little Falls:

Cultivate a culture in which all skills and talents are seen as valuable, no matter what job sector they fall into, whether agriculture, manufacturing, technology, knowledge work, or service.

Create natural gathering places for people in the city, places they are drawn to often so we can get people connecting with each other randomly to trade ideas.

Look at tweaking existing zoning laws in the city in order to allow for mixed use that brings more people together. For example, the old neighborhood groceries stories allowed people to get to know each other while also contributing to the economy. Are zoning laws in Little Falls currently set up to allow stores in residential neighborhoods? Do zoning laws allow for internet-based businesses run from homes? How about for contractors that work from home?

Encourage and support local entrepreneurs and small businesses (fewer than 20 employees). Little Falls, like most cities, seems to be casting about looking for a major employer from outside to come in and save the city. Large businesses are attracted to vibrant communities that prove they have the talent and economy to support their concerns. If Little Falls can’t attract businesses from the outside, we’ve got to work on building up the entrepreneurial talent that’s already here, even if those businesses employ only a couple of people.

Work on providing some sort of post-secondary educational opportunities. Post-secondary schools, whether colleges or technical schools, draw young people to communities and contribute to a city’s economy. With today’s students facing too much student loan debt, the rising costs of college, and the changes in education society is seeing due to the internet, this post-secondary option need not be a traditional school. Perhaps LF could invent some other post-secondary opportunities for students of all ages. (Atomic Learning could serve as inspiration.)

Teach citizens how to analyze data and put it to good use in improving the community. (Larger cities host hack-a-thons to take advantage of open data. Little Falls has a great example of students learning to analyze data in the form of the Econ Challenge that high school students have won numerous times at the national level.)

Learn to go around institutions that aren’t working. There is no rule that says we have to wait for existing organizations or governmental units to solve our problems, even if it’s in an organization’s mission to tackle a particular problem. Little Falls residents can band together and work on an issue without the assistance of an existing organization.

During community planning meetings, once goals are agreed upon, we must break them into action steps in order to effectively achieve them. No more plans gathering dust on shelves, please.

The City of Little Falls needs to update its website regularly and make it more active. It also needs to make video of its meetings available online, not just on the local cable access channel. There are a lot of people who don’t have cable, preferring internet-based television. The City needs to follow trends like these in order to help residents stay informed.

I’m hesitant to recommend this strategy for making change in Little Falls, MN, because too often people think it means exactly copying what another community is doing. But, here goes …

In looking at ways to make Little Falls more progressive in terms of economy and improving life for its citizens, why not look to other communities for inspiration?

I am not suggesting, as I have witnessed in the past, sending an expedition to another community (Lanesboro is a popular choice), and rushing back full of ideas to transplant what’s working there here, as though Little Falls does not have its own factors or qualities that will affect how those ideas are implemented. Usually the ideas gained at these inspirational expeditions fizzle in short order.

That doesn’t mean getting inspiration from other communities is a bad idea; it means that we have to figure out how to modify outside ideas to fit Little Falls and create concrete action steps to put them in place. It also means adjusting ideas if they prove not to be workable. A spirit of experimentation and a willingness to try and fail are important here. (Analysis of data, as previously suggested, and strong community discussion are also important.)

We don’t even have to visit other communities in order to take inspiration from them. There are many articles online regarding economic and community development and trends in the urban and rural landscapes that we can read for ideas. Some ideas are complex and take longer to implement, but others are small and easy to adapt locally.

[Center for Rural Policy and Development] Addressing the coming workforce squeeze — This article covers several demographic factors related to the number of workers available to fill jobs. It offers the following advice to rural communities:

So how do rural communities compete as more demand is put on this future pool of workers? The key is to understand what makes people choose to live where they do.

Few Olympic athletes are good at everything. In fact, they’re usually specialized. One is best at sprinting, while another excels at heaving a shotput. Communities are the same way, or rather, they’re all different. Rather than trying to be all things to all people, a community should figure out what they do best, then get the word out to those interested in that lifestyle.

In other words, don’t simply copy other communities in development efforts.

Another ways Little Falls can take inspiration from other cities is to learn from problems they experience in their development efforts. Little Falls has discussed installing a splash pad. This article from the StarTribune points out the issues that have arisen in communities that have already installed them.

Be inspired, Little Falls, but let’s take that inspiration and make it our own. And, let’s not be afraid to lead the pack and serve as inspiration for other communities.

Have you run across any recent articles about development efforts in other communities that could be adapted to Little Falls? Have you found ideas you’d like to see implemented in Little Falls that were inspired by other communities? If so, please share in the comments.

How can we raise issues without ranting or getting everyone else unnecessarily worked up? How do we minimize blowback (on ourselves & our organizations) when bringing problems to the fore?

One secret is in learning to ask good questions.

When you ask a question in public, so long as your tone is one of genuine inquiry and not a veiled accusation, people shouldn’t see that as a negative. You’re not on the attack or being impolite. You’re seeking information, which helps in the analysis phase of solving the city’s problems.

So, what kinds of questions are good ones to ask?

When it comes to city or county government, because our country has been set up to be “by the people, for the people,” all citizens have a right and a duty to ask questions. Some good questions for governments include ….

How is our tax money being spent? What does that ordinance mean in practical terms? How was this decision made and who was involved in making it? Is this based on state law? What kind of data was used in creating this ordinance or making this decision? What does this law/ordinance/decision mean for average citizens like me?

When it comes to nonprofit organizations, one of the expectations is that these organizations operate with a certain measure of transparency as part of their nonprofit status. Their Articles of Incorporation, bylaws, and annual financial statement (the IRS 990) are supposed to be open to the public. Good questions for nonprofits include …

What is your mission statement? How does the organization carry out its mission? Is the nonprofit effective in meeting its mission? How is the nonprofit funded? Is it a membership organization? If so, how does one become a member? How is the board chosen? How long do board members serve? Is there an annual meeting? When is it ? Is it open to the public? Can the public attend regular board meetings? How does the nonprofit engage the public?

You can ask questions like these directly of government officials or nonprofit boards and staff. Watch how those questions are answered, or not answered, as the case may be. If government or nonprofits are not open to answering your honest questions, that tells you something. You may need to ask more questions, perhaps not directly to the organization, but by checking other sources. For example, the IRS 990 forms of most nonprofits can be found online through Guidestar. (Sign up for a free account in order to access the 990s.) Articles of Incorporation and bylaws for nonprofits can be ordered through the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office.

Even if you don’t ask these questions aloud to anyone outside yourself, the act of asking can help clarify your thoughts and allow you to do some analysis that can give you direction in moving forward on a local issue.

As you can probably guess from the name of this blog, it has been following the premise of asking questions in seeking answers. What questions do you want to ask?

When we examine Little Falls in order to improve the community (and, as we can see from the RoadSnacks list, it appears that every community could use some improvement), we have to make sure we analyze the negative, the positive, and the neutral.

While the RoadSnacks article indicates that someone somewhere is doing some kind of analysis of Little Falls, even if it’s just for the purposes of link-bait, how much of that in-depth analysis is actually done by those of us in the city for the city? If we don’t measure what is going on, how do we know when we’ve affected change? Or whether the actions we take are having a positive effect on Little Falls?

The point is, there is data out there and available for use in analyzing Little Falls. Rather than saying, “That’s interesting,” and going back to our hectic lives, why not figure out how to make that data work for us?

Intuition can tell us a lot about a community, but without digging into the numbers, we can happily delude ourselves into thinking things are changing … or NOT changing … and not know for sure.

What is your favorite source for data about Little Falls, Morrison County, and the State of Minnesota? Please share in the comments.

This post was inspired by the thoughtful comments I received on last week’s post about The Fear of Speaking Publicly. If you haven’t already done so, hop over and have a read.

Last week’s commenters felt that when they spoke up, city leaders found ways to silence them and that people and the media were not willing to listen when they expressed their opinions.

This gets kind of deep, but I think it’s at the root of the issue: When you are expressing an idea or opinion, how do you know you’ve been heard? What does the listener have to do to make you believe that your idea or opinion is not being summarily dismissed? Is there some specific action or words the listener must take for you to know you’ve been heard?

As Shelby said last week, “We are becoming a community where people react to others opinions and not respond to another person.”

How, then, do those in the city’s power positions respond rather than simply react? Going a step further, because WE, THE PEOPLE, are part of this democracy, how do we learn to listen and respond so that others feel heard, rather than simply reacting?

When I started Ask Little Falls last October (2014), the intent was to ask the citizens of Little Falls, MN, open-ended questions about the community in order to allow for discussions that would hopefully improve life in the city. I was hoping to hear from voices that we don’t typically hear on the community stage.

While I’ve received some feedback (thanks to all of you who have left comments!), there hasn’t been enough to represent a good cross-section of residents. I also heard from someone who said I should shut down the blog because no one was reading or commenting on it. At that point I shifted focus away from straight questions to providing commentary on life in the city as I see it. (It is by no means the only valid viewpoint of the community.)

It may not be obvious from the comments, but Ask Little Falls does have readers. Privately, people have told me they read it and have provided a number of reasons for why they won’t leave comments. It boils down to a fear of backlash, which keeps people from speaking publicly in any forum.

In a small town, backlash is very real. Your organization (business or nonprofit) may be ostracized and ignored. Personally, you might be called uncooperative and a crank. People may shun you for speaking up. It’s an ancient fear. When shunning meant casting someone out of a village, survival was at stake for the person being shunned. We don’t want to be cast out of the village, so we say nothing.

Believe me, I have dealt with no small amount of fear in operating this blog. I mull posts over thoroughly, choosing my words with care. Having been a blogger for the past 9 years, I have encountered trolls of a serious (as in making-personal-threats serious) nature. I have also dealt with backlash due to speaking up in other forums. Why don’t I just shut up? Go away and live my life quietly? Stop fretting about how Little Falls operates?

Because that’s exactly what those in power positions want citizens to do. Allow them to direct community affairs unopposed, as they see fit, whether it’s good or effective for the citizenry or not.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a benevolent dictator who could find a way to make everyone happy without anyone else lifting a finger?

That is not how American society was set up. The government at all levels is supposed to be “by the people, for the people.” Nonprofit organizations are also supposed to be accountable to the public in exchange for that nonprofit status. In order for this “by the people, for the people” accountability to happen, we have to have the courage to speak up … and the persistence to keep speaking when it seems no one is listening.

If more of us had the courage to speak, fewer of us would be ostracized or shunned. If one person complains, it’s easy to shut him out. If 100 or 1,000 complain, not only is it practically impossible to shun them all in a town the size of Little Falls, the din of the collective voice is bound to be heard.

Raise your voices, people!

(No questions this week. Feel free to leave a comment about whatever is bothering you in Little Falls. And if fear has your tongue, remember that you can use a fake name when you leave a comment.)

The title of today’s blog post sounds vaguely like a Sherlock Holmes story, although that isn’t my intent. Instead, it’s my way of thinking about something I heard on Minnesota Public Radio within the past few years. The segment being covered was about alcoholism. A nurse was the guest and she indicated that we as a society keep trying to get alcoholics to completely give up alcohol. That the only cure is total abstinence. But the nurse had another more practical solution. Why not get alcoholics to reduce their consumption? She had observed that even a modest reduction in alcohol consumption led to a number of positive health effects. Sure, the ideal for an alcoholic is to give up alcohol altogether, but this can be difficult to achieve, so why not do the next best thing?

In attempting to improve living standards and the economy in Little Falls (or any other community), our goal may be to fix everything to some philosophical ideal, but how likely is it that we’ll reach that ideal? Particularly if each citizen is running around with a different ideal in his or her head? Plus, if we ever were to reach this Utopia, how long would it actually last? Nanoseconds, probably.

Why not aim for a measurable goal, a 10-percent solution?

How would life in Little Falls change if there were 10 percent more businesses? According to U.S. Census QuickFacts, there were 764 businesses in Little Falls in 2007. What if there were 76 more operating in town? How might that change the economy and employment opportunities?

The census reports that the percentage living in poverty in Little Falls between 2009 and 2013 was 19.8 percent. Can we decrease that by 10 percent, drop it to 17.8 percent?

How could we increase the median household income by 10 percent, from $34,990 to $38,489?

Is there a way we could encourage 10 percent more of the city’s youth to return to Little Falls after graduating from college? Or perhaps encourage an increase of 10 percent of young people from elsewhere to join the community?

How would increasing the number of volunteers and donations to local nonprofits by 10 percent assist them in meeting their missions? What else might they be able to accomplish with this boost in time and funding?

How might we increase social connections by 10 percent? Or creative output?

Bringing it back around to alcoholism, how could we reduce binge drinking in the community by 10 percent?

Setting a measurable goal for each aspect of the community and making that goal something achievable is an element that has been missing from local planning sessions.

For example, saying we want a bike-friendly community is too vague. What does that mean? Saying we want to provide dedicated bike lanes along 10 percent of the city’s roads is an achievable goal.

What aspect of life in Little Falls would you like to see improved? How would you make that improvement measurable?

The United States has a lot of nonprofits, approximately 1.5 million, in fact. Little Falls has its share of nonprofit organizations, all of them set up to meet some need at the time of formation.

I happen to work at one of them and have served on the boards of others, so I have a solid background in nonprofit management. I also have experience in operating a couple of businesses. In comparing nonprofit management to business management, hands-down, running a nonprofit is more complicated. When it comes to business, you need to please your customer with the product or service you’ve promised and money is exchanged as part of the deal. Meet the need and your customer is happy.

Because of its tax-exempt status, a nonprofit must meet the mission it promised within its Articles of Incorporation and follow a number of other IRS rules in order to keep that exemption. These rules can be complex, so it is no easy task to keep up with them all. Nonprofits have to please a variety of stakeholders, including grantors, foundations, governmental units, members, donors, volunteers, clients/customers, and the general public.

In addition, while it might seem that tax-exempt organizations don’t pay any taxes (it’s in the definition of being tax-exempt, right?), there are occasions when they do pay taxes. If they have employees, they are kicking in the employer portion of payroll taxes. When making purchases at local stores, if they don’t have an exemption form on file with the store (a royal pain for an occasional purchase), they pay sales tax too.

Due to all the requirements and rules involved with running nonprofits (not to mention regular organizational duties, fundraising, and the perpetual state of having more work to do than people to do it), it should come as no surprise that many people don’t know much about what it takes to run a nonprofit.

One of the trends I’ve seen among nonprofits in Little Falls is the drop in the number of people available to volunteer, whether as a member of the board of directors or on tasks related to daily operations or special events. This tracks with societal trends mentioned in “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” by Robert D. Putnam. Fewer Baby Boomers or Gen Xers are volunteering than the generation prior to the Boomers.

Couple this drop in the volunteer pool with the general lack of knowledge of what it takes to operate a nonprofit and you’ve got a serious problem developing among local nonprofits. Who is going to be around to run them as people age out of them? (Understand that many people who are currently volunteering are retired from the workplace and are using their retirement years to fill these roles in the community.)

Nonprofits in Little Falls need to consciously work to address this issue, finding ways to transfer knowledge of how to run nonprofits to younger generations.

The public, too, has a role to play in this. Members of the public need to know how to judge the effectiveness of a nonprofit organization. Understanding that nonprofits are required to be transparent in their operations and are not allowed to provide private benefits to specific individuals or organizations with their resources are crucial aspects of being able to judge that effectiveness.

If a nonprofit won’t provide its annual IRS Form 990 upon request or explain how its board is elected, those are red flags that show the organization lacks the required transparency. (If you’re at all interested in seeing a nonprofit’s Form 990, sign up for a free account with Guidestar and do a search for the organization. Guidestar provides 3 years worth of 990s for most nonprofits.)

Knowing the difference between nonprofit designations also helps. The two most common types of nonprofits in Little Falls are 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6). The IRS provides a definition of 501(c)(3) organizations here and 501(c)(6) organizations here. To further your knowledge of nonprofits, check out this page of links from the IRS. While it might seem to be dry reading, when you’re looking into how a nonprofit is supposed to function, it’s very useful.

Do you feel you have the necessary knowledge to serve on the board of a nonprofit in Little Falls? If not, what information would be helpful to you?

Do you think Little Falls has too many nonprofits, just the right amount, or too few?